One of the thunderscreeches was just abandoned at Meadows field airport by the Navy because nobody wanted to fly it back to Edwards. the airpor asked them to take it back or pa storage. They ignored requests so Meadows field had it mounted on a pylon out front with an electric motor slowly spinnng its prop for 15 or 20 years as a decoration until the gummint seized it back to put in some museum.

One A-4 pilot crashed 2 in flight training and another 2 on active duty and had a fifth one shot from under him in Vietnam. The only reason he did not wash out after crashing 2 in flight school was the fact that his father and grandfather each were 4 star admirals.The planeThe pilot

teto85:One A-4 pilot crashed 2 in flight training and another 2 on active duty and had a fifth one shot from under him in Vietnam. The only reason he did not wash out after crashing 2 in flight school was the fact that his father and grandfather each were 4 star admirals.The plane[static.ddmcdn.com image 400x208]The pilot[foolsandfanatics.com image 539x340]

how DARE YOU suggest that AMERICAN HERO, that WOUNDED WARRIOR and BRAVE P.O.W. career was any thing LESS THAN HONORABLE!?

Good Idea: Nuclear power provides clean and virtually limitless energy, with the latter attribute proving especially important for strategic bombers. Back in the Cold War, Strategic Air Command planes of the United States Air Force would fly in circles around the Arctic, waiting for their doomsday orders to bomb the Soviet Union. With a nuclear reactor on board, they could potentially stay on station for weeks or even months.

The inclusion of the Zero on this list seems more than a tad unfair. It was an outstanding fighter in its day, but back then aviation tech was moving very rapidly. The Japanese should have retired it far sooner.

Fish in a Barrel:The inclusion of the Zero on this list seems more than a tad unfair. It was an outstanding fighter in its day, but back then aviation tech was moving very rapidly. The Japanese should have retired it far sooner.

Top level meddling was responsible for the Zero staying active for so long. That and a lack of available resources.

The aerodynamics on Japanese planes were superb, they were all just under-powered and under-armored in the war. With proper fuel for the engine it was originally equipped with, KI-84 could keep up with any allied plane. Even with the subpar fuel available, it could out dogfight any of them. It's probably a good thing it arrived too late to affect the war much.

Made mostly from wood (and accordingly GLUED) together, it was intended to be flown by teenagers with approximately 8-10 hours in the cockpit. It did manage to kill its first test pilot when the glue failed, It had an endurance time of less than 30 minutes at cruise speed, far less if the pilot wanted to, you know, go fast. One squadron actually got the damned things, and knocked down ONE British aircraft in the six weeks it was in service. At least 13 of the He162s were lost in that six weeks - two of which fell to enemy aircraft. The other 11 went down due to engine failures (MTBF for its engine was somewhere around four hours under ideal conditions, much less as the Luftwaffe disintegrated) or structural failures. One more would go down after the war, taking its RAF test pilot with it due to a - wait for it - structural failure.

Opposing Viewpoint: Eric Brown, one of the greatest British test pilots, swore the plane was never as bad as its reputation, but you had to be a highly skilled pilot to do it.

jaytkay:TFA: Just a few hits from the guns in a Hellcat would make the Zero explode

The Hellcat went into action almost two years after Pearl Harbor.

The Zero was one of the best combat planes in history. For its day. Which did not last long.

But the design was great in its day.

Zafler:Fish in a Barrel: The inclusion of the Zero on this list seems more than a tad unfair. It was an outstanding fighter in its day, but back then aviation tech was moving very rapidly. The Japanese should have retired it far sooner.

Top level meddling was responsible for the Zero staying active for so long. That and a lack of available resources.

The aerodynamics on Japanese planes were superb, they were all just under-powered and under-armored in the war. With proper fuel for the engine it was originally equipped with, KI-84 could keep up with any allied plane. Even with the subpar fuel available, it could out dogfight any of them. It's probably a good thing it arrived too late to affect the war much.

Two good posts. The Zero was a more than adequate fighter for it's day. A little more horsepower, self sealing tanks, and more than 60 rounds per cannon would have made life a great deal more difficult for the Navy's Wildcats.

The Hellcat and Corsair aren't fair comparisons. They were much later designs.

AtlanticCoast63:Opposing Viewpoint: Eric Brown, one of the greatest British test pilots, swore the plane was never as bad as its reputation, but you had to be a highly skilled pilot to do it.

I've always liked the 162. If they'd gone into service a year or even six months eariler, it and the 262 would have made for a trememdous high tech/low tech interceptor mix.

So it doesn't quite fit the article, but I always thought this one was an accident waiting to happen.

It's a Dash 7. the stuff hanging from it is part of a ground penetraing radar. When I worked at MSP, I saw it come in to clear customs. They said they were heading down to the southwest to do a survey for water.

JustGetItRight:I've always liked the 162. If they'd gone into service a year or even six months eariler, it and the 262 would have made for a trememdous high tech/low tech interceptor mix.

Another example of top level meddling farking everything up. Hitler wanted to make it a ground attack aircraft (I think that's what it was), and tried to push them to do so, delaying deployment significantly.

There's always the ME-163. A glider fighter/interceptor boosted to operating altitude by a rocket motor fueled with hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide. The fuels were so reactive that the smallest leak would cause the plane to explode, and so corrosive that the pilots (and anyone else who got near the plane) had to wear protective gear.

Fish in a Barrel:The inclusion of the Zero on this list seems more than a tad unfair. It was an outstanding fighter in its day, but back then aviation tech was moving very rapidly. The Japanese should have retired it far sooner.

Agreed, especially considering the F-104. But to be fair most of the F-104's problems were related to going really really fast or going really really slow.

You can have a plane that has a normally-fueled engine, that has to land on a pretty regular basis

OR

You can have a nuclear-fueled bomber that can fly for months. BUT it needs a small squadron of planes following it, all burning fuel. Where are you saving anything? You are going to either have to land the nuclear one with its tender planes when they run out of fuel, or you will have to keep sending more planes out to replace them. Wouldn't it just be easier and cheaper to build a couple more conventional bombers and put them in a rota. Sounds like LeMay's brand of farktard stupidity at work.

Plus, can you imagine being the poor crew stuck aboard this farker? 10-1 says it would have been up for less than three weeks before one of the pilots just straight-out power-dived the sucker, while the rest of the crew cheered him on.

Fish in a Barrel:There's always the ME-163. A glider fighter/interceptor boosted to operating altitude by a rocket motor fueled with hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide. The fuels were so reactive that the smallest leak would cause the plane to explode, and so corrosive that the pilots (and anyone else who got near the plane) had to wear protective gear.

That's the one I thought of. When I was about 8, I saw one in a museum, and my dad explained how it worked. I loudly said "those silly Germans!" and he told me not to talk like that and tried not to laugh.

But yeah, hypergolic fuels and a fuel system prone to cracking. Not a great combo.

Mr_Juche:So it doesn't quite fit the article, but I always thought this one was an accident waiting to happen.

It's a Dash 7. the stuff hanging from it is part of a ground penetraing radar. When I worked at MSP, I saw it come in to clear customs. They said they were heading down to the southwest to do a survey for water.

[cdn-www.airliners.net image 640x439]

Friend of mine flies that thing. That sensor rig is weird looking, but it's very well engineered and isn't going anywhere.

The Zero a bad plane? Blasphemy! It was damn near immortal at the start of hostilities. The article would have been much better off with something like the LAGG-3 "guaranteed varnished coffin" or perhaps the Curtiss SB2C which, while it had some value, was known as the Son of a Biatch, 2nd class. There were dozens of WWII planes that could have made it on this list. The Zero was not one of them.

You can have a plane that has a normally-fueled engine, that has to land on a pretty regular basis

OR

You can have a nuclear-fueled bomber that can fly for months. BUT it needs a small squadron of planes following it, all burning fuel. Where are you saving anything? You are going to either have to land the nuclear one with its tender planes when they run out of fuel, or you will have to keep sending more planes out to replace them. Wouldn't it just be easier and cheaper to build a couple more conventional bombers and put them in a rota. Sounds like LeMay's brand of farktard stupidity at work.

Plus, can you imagine being the poor crew stuck aboard this farker? 10-1 says it would have been up for less than three weeks before one of the pilots just straight-out power-dived the sucker, while the rest of the crew cheered him on.

Not to mention the amount of supplies needed by the crew for a multi-month flight. Between that and the weight of the reactor itself, I'd be surprised if it could lift off at all.

Since this seems like a plane nerd thread, I should point out that the Hamilton airshow this year has a FW190, and Me262, a Hurricane, a Spitfire, the only flying Mosquito and one of the two flying Lancasters.

The Lanc, Spitfire, Hurricane and Mosquito all went flying at the same time and did at least one flyby in formation, which would easily be the best sound ever created by man. Wish I didn't have to work this weekend..

You can have a plane that has a normally-fueled engine, that has to land on a pretty regular basis

OR

You can have a nuclear-fueled bomber that can fly for months. BUT it needs a small squadron of planes following it, all burning fuel. Where are you saving anything? You are going to either have to land the nuclear one with its tender planes when they run out of fuel, or you will have to keep sending more planes out to replace them. Wouldn't it just be easier and cheaper to build a couple more conventional bombers and put them in a rota. Sounds like LeMay's brand of farktard stupidity at work.

Plus, can you imagine being the poor crew stuck aboard this farker? 10-1 says it would have been up for less than three weeks before one of the pilots just straight-out power-dived the sucker, while the rest of the crew cheered him on.

for that scenario , you are forgetting the time this was all going down, the cold war, and the notion that nuke powered subs were routine at the time. these Bombers were to be the airborne and visable counterparts to the unseen threat from below.

nuke sub operations operate for far longer than three weeks in just as bad as conditions. It is a matter of choosing a crew that for one, follows the reason, and two, doesn't mond the conditions.

in actual operation, save for some longevity stunts, an average mission would probably be about three weeks, at which point a new air craft would circle up to take over with no interuption of coverage while the preious crew and air craft would cicle back down to be replenished, repaired and so forth before recycling the operation again. And from the stories I've heard told by my cold war veteran relatives, It probably would have been a cake walk mission, if you are into that sort of thing.

Remember, all the nuke testing ever done was mostly done for rattling sabers, with legitimate scientific research hanging on for the ride. and the biggest thing anyone ever learned from any testing was that nukes were good for blowing shiat up, and little else after that.

costermonger:Since this seems like a plane nerd thread, I should point out that the Hamilton airshow this year has a FW190, and Me262, a Hurricane, a Spitfire, the only flying Mosquito and one of the two flying Lancasters.

The Lanc, Spitfire, Hurricane and Mosquito all went flying at the same time and did at least one flyby in formation, which would easily be the best sound ever created by man. Wish I didn't have to work this weekend..

IMHO, the Mosquito is one of the prettiest planes ever built. Just about the cleanest lines imaginable.

Cerebral Knievel:nuke sub operations operate for far longer than three weeks in just as bad as conditions.

I'm not so sure. From the sounds of it, everyone would be in a compartment the size of a big airstream trailer. 7 guys, all their food and supplies, and the cockpit and monitoring stations. Even subs have more room. Plus, subs at least give you the tension of the various ways the sea can kill you plus maybe running into someone else, so you get some respite from boredom via shiat-your-pants terror - this is "take a gentle bank to the right; hold that for 3 weeks." Boredom, no tension to erase that, and 7 guys playing telephone booth = power-dive to relive the monotony.